Every weekend after Sandy's fall, Stafford would drop in to check on his grandmother. He openly tried to convince Sandy to fire Kitty in front of her for hours on end. Sometimes he'd stay an afternoon, others the whole night. No amount of time with Stafford was short enough as far as Kitty was concerned. He made it loudly known that he considered her trash with every effort he made. "Did you even wash your hands when you cooked that?!", "Anyone could have figured this out by now!", "Why are you here?" Sandy did not interfere with Stafford's cruel attitude toward her, she was indifferent, which made Kitty feel as if Sandy agreed with Stafford. Kitty made a point to be scarce when Stafford was around by hiding in the kitchen doing busy work or in the worst-case scenario going to the garage and "dusting."
The day after Saint Patrick's Day Stafford stayed the weekend. On Friday he arrived in the morning and demanded that Kitty bake a gourmet meal from scratch, he didn't say what he wanted though. All that was in the kitchen were leftover corn tortillas and canned beans. Kitty thought she could make Mexican food for them and went to work. Stafford hearing, her went into the kitchen himself to see Kitty pouring olive oil into the pan and putting a tortilla into it to fry. Stafford became angry at this. "I can't eat that! It's greasy!" Kitty stopped what she was doing and took the pan off the burner. She didn't know what to do, it felt like no matter what he was looking to find a reason to yell at her, so she waited for him to say something else. "Well!" He looked at her as she stared back like a deer in headlights, "Cook something else." Kitty mumbled for a bit"...there's not a lot of food in the house right now and by the time the bus gets to the grocery store it'll be closed so..." She didn't have the guts to say that she didn't make it to the grocery store that afternoon as she normally would have because Stafford was making ridiculous demands of her by forcing her to stretch and iron all of the collared shirts that he brought with him. "Just when I think you can't be any more useless, you screw up doing your easy job again. My grandmother better not be paying you more than minimum wage." Kitty didn't bother to say that his grandmother hadn't and wasn't paying her at all. "Get your coat, we're going to the store," Stafford said as he grabbed his keys.
They had never been alone before other than the first time they had met in the hospital. Stafford was always so angry, it was odd to see him in his car. He almost looked like a normal person and not the spiteful prat she knew him as. The moment ended when Stafford turned on the car and blasted his techno music so loudly that Kitty thought her eardrums were going to burst. She yelled at him to please turn it down, but he could not hear her or would not acknowledge her as he drove. At the grocery store, Stafford pointed to every item on the shelf and told her whether or not she could use that item when she cooked for him. Kitty had been holding a basket thinking that they were only there to buy a couple of things for dinner. Stafford talked for so long that her arms started to ache as the basket's metal handle dug into her hands. She went to set the basket down as Stafford went on, he noticed this and grabbed the back of her hair which was in a ponytail, and forced her to look up at what he was talking about. His maneuver shocked Kitty, she was used to the likes of Pam and some of the more drugged-out people in her old neighborhood who put their hands on others, not with Stafford. Kitty didn't like it but was too taken off guard to know how to react. The store's intercom broke the tension when it announced that the store would be closing in 5 minutes. Stafford without a word took the basket from Kitty's hands and checked out.
The ride back was just as unnerving. Stafford had his windows rolled down while he in his thick leather coat did not mind the freezing night air and Kitty in her thin sweater was shivering uncontrollably. Not that Stafford could have heard her complain, his music was at its highest setting once more. At the house, Kitty cooked dinner just how Stafford wanted it; no salt, no spice, and no oil either. Then she went to the laundry room to fold clothes while Stafford and Sandy ate together. When they were done she cleaned up after them and went to her room for the night with her door locked. She was too flustered to do her mail away GED course packet for the night and instead wrote a letter to Pam. When she was done she lay in bed looking out of her window, wondering if she should find another place to live as she knew enough about bad men that once they put their hands on you, it only gets worse from there. Stafford was no longer a rude guest, he was her abuser.
Comments